World Cup: Making the World More Social
Like the Olympics, the World Cup is about bringing the World together to show national pride, athleticism and sportsmanship. In my opinion as a soccer (football) fan, the World Cup is more intimate at bringing the world together because cheering on our home team is our common goal. Trust me, that pun was intended.
This World Cup was a game changer in the marketing aspect of things. At the last World Cup, social media was just a baby. With Facebook only having 10 million users (today Facebook hit their 500 million milestone), Myspace was the rising star, YouTube wasn’t a billion dollar acquisition and no one was Tweeting about anything. However, the 2010 World Cup brought out the “social” side in a lot of big marketers.
Many companies used YouTube, but the one that stands out is Nike. Using YouTube, Nike wanted to capture the emotions that were brought on with the games and its fans. Not to mention, that YouTube attracts over 500 million visitors globally each month. This video that Nike released on May 20th, has been watched over 14 million times.
Another good example of a company utilizing YouTube for its World Cup branding is Coca-Cola. Coke used a global TV campaign with a Cameroonian soccer player named Roger Milla. The TV spot features Roger and his over-the-top goal celebration. Coke then directs people to YouTube to submit their own goal celebration videos. In one month, Coke reported that they had received 5,000 submissions.
As I mentioned before, the World Cup is about coming together. It’s about connecting the fans with the game. Coca-Cola did an excellent job by including and encouraging fan participation with their TV and YouTube campaign.
Another great example of fan participation is the campaign that Anheuser-Busch ran. They launched a full-fledged reality TV show on YouTube. It brings together 32 soccer fans, one from each country participating in the World Cup. When the team is eliminated, its representative will likewise be eliminated.
With the world watching, it was important for advertisers to get their message out and to leave their global footprint. I’ve mentioned a couple of great YouTube examples that were used by advertisers, but let’s not forget the Facebook effort.
For instance, Nike used Facebook to roll out their 10-minute film called The Change.
After all the celebrating, drinking, dancing and probably some crying. Here is where the World Cup advertising got one of our advertisers.
Coca-Cola
Profits were up 16% in Coca-Cola’s second quarter and analysts credit advertising tied to the World Cup to a 5% volume growth in sales (2% in North America). Last quarter, sales dipped 1%.
Nike has not yet released their information on profits for this quarter.
In conclusion, you are probably thinking that Coca-Cola and Nike were the official sponsors of the World Cup, right? Thing again. Nike and Coca-Cola are known as ambush advertisers.
Adidas and Pepsi were the official sponsors. Even though Coke’s profits were up, they still couldn’t beat that of Pepsi’s. Adidas is also being called the winner over Nike.
I bet you didn’t know football (soccer) could be so exciting?
